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THE FILMWorking with 16 other documentary filmmakers, Shannon Walsh has created a fascinating day-in-the-life portrait of this legendary community. In St‑Henri, the 26th of August, Walsh paints a human picture of a working-class neighbour-hood—one that has experienced its share of turmoil over the years. Shot in a 24-hour period on August 26, 2010, the documentary is an intimate profile of today’s St-Henri.

August 26th is the first day of school. The weather is hot and stormy…and a day in the life of St-Henri is about to play out in front of us. St-Henri is hemmed in by the infamous Turcot Interchange to the west, the Lachine Canal to the south, the Atwater Market to the east and the affluent Westmount neigh-bourhood to the north. While the face of St-Henri may have changed over the years, its unique character remains.

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As factories close down, the imposing husks of old manufacturing buildings are vestiges of St-Henri’s industrial past. The residents of St-Henri form an eclectic community, with people from all walks of life living side by side, yet often remain-ing invisible to one another. A colourful mosaic of contemporary Quebec, St-Henri is a place where neighbourhood living remains a reality, and a true sense of community endures—a place where, in alleyways and empty lots and alongside rail lines, kids are kings. Shannon Walsh and her filmmaking teams follow more than a dozen local residents. Together, they take the pulse of an urban area in the midst of transformation, yet still anchored to its storied past.

With its dynamic population, the neigh-bourhood is home to countless compelling stories, brought to life through the course of the day. We meet Doris, who makes a few dollars collecting bottles; Daniel, the last remaining milk delivery man, on his milk run; Belinda, a vibrant hair stylist born in Togo; Mr. Lee, who diligently runs a convenience store; Yanick and Jonathan, two young fishermen in search of worms; the elderly Edmée and Robert, who enjoy strolling along the canal; featherweight boxer Babyface, who trains at the local gym; Thérèse and Denise, both enjoying the pleasures of a pedicure at Ongles Crystal; Walter and Jonas, two young, gay Mohawks who find themselves unwittingly politicized; Danielle, the urban explorer who descends into St-Henri’s sewers in search of adventure and the unknown; and a host of eccentric night owls. Despite their differences, they all have something in common: they live in St-Henri and are passionate, proud and full of stories.

Co-written by Shannon Walsh and Denis Valiquette, St‑Henri, the 26th of August is an homage to the classic Hubert Aquin film À Saint-Henri le cinq septembre, shot in 1962. Like its predecessor, the film is a collective work, created by some of the most celebrated documentary filmmakers of their generation, including Anaïs Bar-beau-Lavalette, Richard Brouillette, Tracey Deer, Claude Demers, Halima Elkhatabi and Sylvain L’Espérance. Working in the true spirit of cinéma-vérité, each film crew documents daily life to reveal complexities and contradictions through scenes that are funny, moving and thoughtful. The film allows us to explore a community that has been marked by varied social forces, while appreciating its richness and vitality.

The original score by Patrick Watson cele-brates this diversity, giving the narrative a musical distinctiveness. Each track lends texture to a constantly engaging urban setting, inviting us to travel through the streets of the neighbourhood in pursuit of new and unique worlds.

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SHANNON WALSH DIRECTOR AND WRITER

Shannon Walsh is a Canadian film-maker, teacher and writer living in Montreal. Informed by a profound political consciousness, she sees film as a means of social engagement. Her personal and professional lives have eloquently brought together both creativity and activism.

Walsh studied at Concordia Univer-sity, where she earned a Bachelor of

Arts in photography in 2000. In 2004, she was awarded a Master’s degree through the university’s Special Individualized Programs, combining education, sociology, film and feminist studies. She completed her doctorate in education and anthropology at McGill University in 2009, writing her dissertation on ethnographies of health in the shack settlements of post-apartheid South Africa. In 2001, she founded the Guava Collective project, which blends artistic practice with social change.

Film soon came to play a critical role in Walsh’s career. After a first foray into the medium with the experimental short Revisit (2002), she co-directed the documentary Sayeh in 2003. The film, which centred on Mehran Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who had lived in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport for more than eleven years, screened in Rio de Janeiro, New York and Montreal, provid-ing Walsh with her first international exposure.

In 2004, she released the short documentary Fire & Hope, which focused on the fight against AIDS among young people in South Africa. The film toured the world, most notably with screenings in Thailand, South Africa, Canada, Cuba and Venezuela. Walsh fol-

lowed up Fire & Hope with three short documentaries on subjects close to her heart: Canadian immigration policy (No One Is Illegal, 2005), resistance movements among South Africa’s poorest communities (Inkani, 2006), and the fight for land in that same country (Home-less, 2008). The Space in Between, released in 2007, marked her entry into the world of short fiction, with a per-sonal story of a woman’s search for meaning. Her 2009 feature-length documentary H2Oil premiered at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto. The film, which explores the human and environmental costs of oil sands extraction in Alberta, won the Grand Prix du Festival at the Portneuf Environmental Film Festival, and Honour-able Mention for the ÉcoCaméra award at the 2010 Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal. The film went on to enjoy considerable success at major Canadian festivals, includ-ing Sudbury, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, as well as at international festivals in Rome, Istanbul, Scandinavia and the United States.

In 2010, Shannon Walsh joined Parabola Films and launched the St‑Henri, the 26th of August project with the National Film Board of Canada. A collaboration between Shannon and 16 other directors, the documentary chronicles a 24-hour period in the traditional working-class Montreal neighbourhood of St-Henri.

Walsh now intends to return to South Africa, where she plans to finish a documentary and write a new work of fiction (entitled Man-Bitch), as well as undertake post-doctoral work at the University of Johannesburg as part of the Chair for Social Change. It’s just the latest chapter in a journey that has consistently highlighted social action and the creative process—values that Shannon Walsh continues to promote in multi-faceted ways.

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THE FILMMAKER

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SARAH SPRING Producer

Sarah Spring has produced the feature documentaries Roadsworth: Crossing the Line and H2Oil, the 16mm dance short Transfert, and the music video The Lamb, for Montreal artist Little Scream. Most recently, Sarah produced St‑Henri, the 26th of August, in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada and Canal D, in which Shannon Walsh and

16 other filmmakers documented a variety of stories over the course of one day. Sarah is the founder and President of Parabola Films and is on the board of DOC Québec.

SELIN MURAT Associate Producer

At Parabola Films, Selin Murat has produced and directed several short projects, including the music video The Lamb for Montreal artist Little Scream and Ginseng Empire, which premiered at the 2010 Big Sky Documentary Festival, in competition for best mini-doc. Selin previously worked with the film collective Load-ed Pictures, managing award-winning productions like Roadsworth: Cross-

ing the Line and H2Oil. St‑Henri, the 26th of August is her first feature project.

COLETTE LOUMÈDE Producer (NFB)

After earning a law degree, Colette Loumède decided to work in cinema. Drawn to auteur films, she spent ten years with the Coopérative Vidéo-scopique de Montréal, occupying a variety of positions related to film creation and production. She then joined Les Productions du Regard and Synercom Téléproductions (a group of regional producers), follow-

ing which she became project manager for SODEC (Société de développement des entreprises culturelles).

From 2002 to 2007, she was executive producer of the NFB French Program’s Documentary Studio A. With her extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of the industry, she built numerous partnerships with national and international private production companies, produced or co-produced over 30 docu-mentaries, and won numerous awards.

To mention a few: The Memories of Angels by Luc Bourdon won the Grand Prix Focus – Cinémathèque québécoise at the 2008 Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal and was a finalist at the 2009 FOCAL International Awards in London. The 2008 Gémeaux Award for Best Documentary: Society and the 2008 Jutra Award for Best Documentary were awarded to The Invisible Nation, by Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie. Two documentaries by Patricio Henríquez also garnered honours: Under the Hood: A Voy-age into the World of Torture received the 2009 Jutra Award for Best Documentary; and The Dark Side of the White Lady won the 2006 Best Investigative Documentary Award at the Valparaiso Film Festival in Chile, as well as the 2007 Regards sur le crime prize at the Festival Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland. That same year, Serge Giguère’s Driven by Dreams won the NFB Prize for Best Canadian Documentary at the Calgary International Film Festival, the Jutra for Best Documentary and the Special Jury Prize – Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs in Toronto. Between Two Notes by Florence Strauss garnered the Award for Best Reportage at Montreal’s Festival international du film sur l’art.

In early 2007, Colette Loumède was appointed documentary program director at the Institut national de l’image et du son, while pursuing a parallel career as an independent producer. She returned to the NFB in February 2009 as senior producer at the French Program’s Quebec Studio.

THE PRODUCERS

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DirectorShannon Walsh

Unit DirectorsAnaïs Barbeau-LavaletteRichard BrouilletteFabien CôtéTracey DeerClaude DemersYanie Dupont-HébertHalima ElkhatabiSylvain L’EspéranceJulien FontainePaul KellCaroline MartelAmy MillerKaveh NabatianBrett StoryDenis ValiquetteKaren VanderborghtShannon Walsh

Written byShannon WalshDenis Valiquette

EditingSophie Leblond

Sound DesignDaniel Lagacé

Directors of Photography Marie-Noël ArseneauGeoffroy BeaucheminFabien CôtéBoban ChaldovichJeff DornYanie Dupont-Hébert Julien Fontaine Katherine GiguèrePaul KellPhilippe LavaletteMartin LeblancJacques LeducSylvain L’EspéranceJean-Pierre Saint-Louis

SoundSantiago BertolinoFabien CôtéJose GarciaSimon GouletDaniel LagacéMarc LaRoucheOlivier LégerAlexandre LemouëlMartine MorinChristophe MotteKyle StanfieldLynne TrépanierCatherine Van der doncktSylvain Vary

Assistant to the ProducerSamara Chadwick

Production ManagersBruno DequenSimon DraglandAndrea Feder

Gear CoordinatorDaniel Froidevaux

Technical CoordinatorAlexandre Domingue

Data WranglersJonathan Durand Howie Pun

RunnersAisling Chin-YeeJuliet LammersMarco ValiquetteJoe Yarmush

CraftMathieu WinnickiSalah Samghour

Production AssistantsManu Barbeau-LavalettePascal Bergeron Laetitia BertolinoSamara ChadwickClaire ChevalierLaurence FauteuxTobie FraserJose GarciaGaelle JanvierTim KellyCraig KnoxShahriar el KoshtAndres LivovPablo Alvarez MesaGabrielle ProvostDavid Widginton

Assistant EditorsAmélie LabrècheAriane Pétel-DespotsRobby ReisCharles Verret

Sound MixerJean Paul Vialard, NFB

Sound AssistantsPierre-Yves DecosteFrancesco Neri

Post ServicesPost-Moderne Alexandre Domingue

Post CoordinatorAnne-Marie Bousquet

Visual EffectsGuillaume Pelletier

Online Justin Lachance

Colour CorrectionJulien Alix

Director, Original Programming - Canal DSylvie de Bellefeuille

Production Services (NFB)

Associate ProducerMaryse Chapdelaine

Production CoordinatorDominique Brunet

Administrative AssistantLise Lévesque

Editing SupportDanielle RaymondIsabelle PainchaudPierre Dupont

Marketing ManagerFrançois Jacques

Assisted byEmilie Nguyen Ngoc

AdministratorsJohanne DubucManon Provencher

Technical CoordinatorsRichard ClicheFrance Couture

ConsultantPepita Ferrari

ResearchShannon WalshDenis Valiquette

Additional ResearchAmy TwiggeClaude PaquetteMarco Valiquette

Production InternNisha Platzer

Set Photographers Rachel GranofskyJessica PetuniaMarie-Pierre Boucher

Interim FinancingACEMFilaction

Legal CounselRemy KhouzamCaroline JonnaertKerry Williams

SubtitlesSabrina Leblond-MurphyCatherine Leroux

CreditsMarc Rimmer

Original MusicPatrick WatsonWithGuitar: Brad BarrSlide: GuitarJoe GrassHarp: Sarah PagePercussion: Stefan SchneiderSaxophone: Colin StetsonViole de gambe: Pierre-Yves Martel

ProducerSarah Spring

Associate ProducerSelin Murat

Producer (NFB) Colette Loumède

With the financial participation ofSODEC – Société de développement des entreprises culturelles – Québec Canada – Canadian Film or Video Production Tac CreditQuebec – Crédit d’impôt cinéma et télévision – Gestion SODECCALQ – Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec

In collaboration withCANAL D

With the participation ofRogers Documentary Fund

ST-HENRI, THE 26TH OF AUGUSTFrench ProgramQuebec Studio

Produced by Parabola Films

In co-production with the National Film Board of Canada

PARABOLAFILMS.CA NFB.CA

© 2011 NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA

CREDITS